Tricolour-waving Dogra crowds had sent shudders through the minority Gujjar and Bakerwal communities in 2018 in Kathua after they rallied in thousands in support of the men accused of raping and murdering an eight-year-old Bakerwal girl.
Leading the protest that day under the Hindu Ekta Manch was Choudhary Lal Singh, a BJP minister who had earlier ruffled Gujjar feathers by reminding a delegation seeking firewood whether they had forgotten “47,” seen as a reference to 1947 when thousands of Muslims were butchered in Jammu.
Many members of the minority tribal community today see a saviour in him, their common dislike for the BJP uniting them.
Choudhary, 65, a two-time Congress MP who joined the BJP in 2014 after he was refused a ticket, is spearheading the campaign for the revival of the Congress in Jammu. A Hindu Rajput, he is the party’s candidate for the Udhampur-Doda parliamentary seat.
The 2018 incident had caused outrage far and wide, leading to his resignation from the BJP.
He was hounded, even arrested, by the Enforcement Directorate in a money-laundering case, but his supporters claim he was targeted for opposing the BJP and advocating special status for J&K under Article 371, securing land and job rights over locals who feel outsiders were encroaching on their rights.
His rallies, comprising mostly Dogras but including several Muslims, including Gujjars and Bakerwals, now resonate with calls for unity against hate.
Doda resident Mohammad Ovais Chavdhary, 25, a Muslim Gujjar with the same surname spelt differently, was on the opposite side of the Kathua controversy,
but will queue up outside a booth on April 19 to vote for Choudhary.
“I was only 19 then and was among the first men to pick up the body of the girl after she went missing for days (she was confined to a temple, raped by the temple priest and others for three days and then bludgeoned to death to push Bakerwals out of area). We stopped an ambulance that was carrying her body, brought it down
and staged a protest on the road,” Chavdhary, a law graduate turned PDP youth leader, said.
Chavdhary is still unwilling to forgive Choudhary or share a stage with him but will nevertheless vote for him.
“For me, the choice is between a smaller enemy and a bigger enemy. I choose the former. What happened that day was tragic but lakhs of our girls feel unsafe
under their (BJP) rule,” he said, a refrain shared by many Muslims.
Choudhary is fighting Jitendra Singh, a key minister in the Narendra Modi government looking for a third term. His entry has reinvigorated the Congress and the jitters in the BJP camp are palpable.
The BJP has launched all its top guns, including Prime Minister Modi, home minister Amit Shah, defence minister Rajnath Singh and Uttar Pradesh chief minister Yogi Adityanath, to bolster Jitendra Singh’s poll campaign.
Fighting the BJP is no mean task. Jammu’s Hindu heartland has emerged as
a crucible of Hindutva politics. In 2019, Jitendra Singh trounced Congress’s Vikramaditya Singh, a scion of Dogra rulers, by a massive 3.5 lakh votes.
None of the Congress top leaders have joined Choudhary’s campaign and he has to contend with second-rung leaders such as Sachin Pilot and Raj Babbar.
But the crowds at his rallies match those of the BJP.
Gujjars and Bakerwals are 10 per cent of the population in the constituency that spreads over 16,773 sq km in Udhampur, Kathua, Doda, Ramban and Kishtwar districts of Jammu. Muslims overall are a third of its 16.24 lakh electorate.
National Conference and the Peoples Democratic Party are supporting him, with former chief ministers Farooq Abdullah and Omar Abdullah holding rallies but have so far not shared a stage with him. Choudhary’s worry is the Ghulam Nabi Azad-led Democratic Progressive Azad Party, which has fielded former minister GM Saroori. He is unlikely to win but could split the anti-BJP vote.
There is also a strong undercurrent among Dogras against the BJP, particularly against Jitendra Singh, many calling him an “absentee MP”. Singh himself focuses more on Modi’s report card than his own but that alone is unlikely to work with a section of Dogras.
In the din of elections, this correspondent caught up with the shepherd father of the little girl, around 25km from his Kathua home in Samba, on his way to the Valley with his herd of sheep. He is indifferent to elections.
“I am not voting for anybody, not in the least for him (Choudhary). But yes, if Mehbooba Mufti or her party were contesting, I would have voted for her. She is the one who raised her voice against the killing,” he said.
Udhampur votes today